The people's unfaithfulness turned into blessing

God, knowing what the people were, and what was their
condition, had left within the borders of their land that which
put obedience to the proof -- the Philistines, the Sidonians,
etc., that they might learn war, and experience the ways and the
government of Jehovah.

Thus the wisdom and foreknowledge of God, who knows what is in
man, turned the unfaithfulness of the people into
blessing. Outward prosperity, without trial, would not have
remedied unbelief, whilst it would have deprived them of those
exercises and conflicts in which they might learn what God was,
His ways and His relations to them, as well as what their own
hearts were.

We go through the same experience, and for the same
reasons.

Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar raised up as deliverers

I will now go over the principal subjects presented in the
history of this book. Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar were, in
succession, the first instruments raised up by God to deliver His
people.

First we have to remark the failure of the people, who begin to
serve false gods; thereupon their servitude. In their
distress they cry unto Jehovah. This is always the way in which
deliverance comes (chap. 3: 9, 15; 4: 3). In this last instance
Jehovah departs from His usual ways. The nation had lost its
strength and energy, even as to its internal affairs. This is the
effect of repeated falls; the sense of God's power is lost.

Deborah and Barak

At the period of which we speak, a woman judged Israel. It was
a sign of God's omnipotency, for she was a prophetess. But it was
contrary to God's ordinary dealings, and a disgrace to
men. Deborah calls Barak (for where the Spirit of God acts, He
discerns and directs); she communicates to him the command of
God. He obeys; but he lacks faith to proceed as one who has had
direct instruction from God and consequently needs no other. These
direct communications give the consciousness of God's presence,
and that He interposes on behalf of His people. Barak will not go
without Deborah. But this want of faith is not to his credit. Men
will keep the place which answers to the measure of their faith;
and God will again be glorified through the instrumentality of a
woman. Barak has faith enough to obey if he has some one near who
can lean immediately on God, but not enough to do so himself.
This is too often the case. God does not reject him, but He does
not honour him. In fact, it is by no means the same faith in
God. And it is by faith that God is honoured.

The recovering discipline of the people in war

We have, moreover, in this case, not the immediate destruction
of the enemy, but the discipline of the people in war to recover
them from the state of moral weakness into which they had
fallen. They began with small things. A woman was the instrument;
for fear does not honour God, and God cannot allow His glory to
rest on such a condition as this. But little by little "the hand
of the children of Israel prevailed against Jabin until they had
destroyed him."

The usual effect of such a work of the Holy Ghost as this is to
present the people as willingly offering themselves (chap. 5: 2).
Nevertheless the Spirit of God has shewn us that unbelief amongst
the people had caused many of them to stay behind; and thus they
lost the manifestation and the experience of the power of God. The
judgment of God amounts to a curse where there was an entire
holding back, a refusing to be associated with the people in their
weakness.